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Creating Large, Safe, and Cheap Network Attached Servers?
davco9200 asks: "I am looking to create a large data server for all my digital media files. The usage is the 'pro-user' category, to use the media from multiple stations in my house and at work. I value space (150+ gb would be nice), accessible from multiple platforms (Win, Mac), but perhaps most of all, some security (e.g. RAID 0 doesn't cut it). Total write or read access isn't that high of a priority. I have looked at things like the Snap 4100 that offer 160 gb or 300 gb and good raid options but the price seems high ($2,700 and $4,500 respectively). Has anyone had any experience making their own low-end NAS? Has anyone looked at the Adaptec IDE RAID Controller? This seems like a reasonable way of getting data parity so if one drive goes down your entire collection isn't lost. I figured Slashdot readers would have some good solutions. Information on specific cases, drives, and other pertinent facts would be helpful."
Tom's Hardware has an article on their main page about software RAID under Windows 2000. Apparently it supports striping and spanning, and unlimited drives as long as you have enough controllers for them. The boot HDD has to be standalone but the others can be RAID-linked. The best thing is that it supports multiple interfaces. You can have 3 IDE drives and a SCSI drive and they'll all RAID together.
I don't know if an MS product is what you'd want to use, but it's out there.
J.W. Koebel